Funny, because you and the rest of the complainers, seem to be looking backward with a pessimistic view.

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I see, so it's 'us against them' now, is it? And here I thought it was a friendly chat about concerns of the direction of our beloved franchise. I didn't realize that battle-lines had been drawn.

You are living in the past, and you are attacking Forward looking optimistic viewpoints.

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Strawman. I'm not living in the past, and at no time did I ever endore "It should be like the 1960s". That would be stupid. But aping the visual themes of a third-tier science-fiction show that looks like every other piece of science-fiction released since 1992 is hardly 'forward looking'.

You attack a film you know nothing about.

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I'm attacking what I've seen and read of the new project thus far, because I've found precious little to like about it.

On the other hand, YOU are deliberately misrepresenting arguments, attacking people at quite a personal level, etc, all to support a film that - as you just admitted - you actually know very little about.

You are angry and spiteful for no reason, other than it's what seems to be fashionable for trek fans to hate anything which wasn't done in the first three seasons.

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Strawman, yet again.

Look to the future, stop living in the past.

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I'm living in the future. Seems to me that removing what made Trek unique as a setting and replacing it with a rehash of BSG, B5, etc, is much more 'living in the past' than wanting to keep what made Trek both unique and successful as part of the franchise.

Oddly, neither Enterprise nor Nemesis were made for 'hardcore fans'. In fact, the production teams for both of those projects went out of their way to say that it was to capture a 'new' audience , even if it meant alienating some of the 'old fan base'.

hutt359 said:
Tell me, should the uniforms be valor pullovers? Should the women be in one piece micro minis? Should the sets still be made of cardboard? Should all the planet shots be done on a sound stage with paper mashay rocks and rubber vomit bat creatures???

Look to the future, stop living in the past.

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Gee, I seem to remember seeing plenty of shot-in-outdoors TOS eps, WHEN THEY HAD THE BUDGET TO DO IT.

By way of comparison on the features, when you'd think they had the money to shoot on location for Vulcan and Genesis, they wimped out and did it on the soundstage, ostensibly for control. In fact, I've seen papier mache (note the spelling) rocks in pretty much every trek movie that had a cave location.

As for skirts, I'm pretty sure this is in the era that predated the minis, since they didn't have the in WHERE NO MAN and the only mini in CAGE was some kind of off-duty wear.

You might want to review the actual SERIES and/or movies before making sweeping and incorrect comments about them. Or are you so busy looking to the future that you can't see the past (and perhaps will be condemned to repeat it at some point?)

Vance said:
Oddly, neither Enterprise nor Nemesis were made for 'hardcore fans'. In fact, the production teams for both of those projects went out of their way to say that it was to capture a 'new' audience , even if it meant alienating some of the 'old fan base'.

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One thing the various Trek productions have proved over the years is that saying you’re going to make a Trek film or TV series in a particular sort of way or for a particular type of audience does not necessarily mean that you have the slightest clue how to actually do it.

Vance said:
Oddly, neither Enterprise nor Nemesis were made for 'hardcore fans'. In fact, the production teams for both of those projects went out of their way to say that it was to capture a 'new' audience , even if it meant alienating some of the 'old fan base'.

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One thing the various Trek productions have proved over the years is that saying you’re going to make a Trek film or TV series in a particular sort of way or for a particular type of audience does not necessarily mean that you have the slightest clue how to actually do it.

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This is true. It's also true that the fact that two very different productions - Abrams' film and "Enterprise" - have made similar choices in several regards is in large part because the alternatives are not reasonable.

To cater to the hard-core Trek fan base, small as it's become, is to guarantee commercial failure. And to do it to the tune of 130 million dollars would be criminal irresponsibility where the stockholders of CBS and Paramount are concerned.

One might as well spend over 100 million dollars making a "Stargate SG-1" film or a similarly-budgeted film based on Ron Moore's "Battlestar Galactica" - they're both popular with a certain number of people, are reasonably well-regarded by lots of folks and are successful within limits that satisfy their studios and producers and networks, but no one has any reason to believe that an audience of sufficient size exists to make such a huge investment reasonable. And so, these days, with "Star Trek."

Vance said:
Oddly, neither Enterprise nor Nemesis were made for 'hardcore fans'. In fact, the production teams for both of those projects went out of their way to say that it was to capture a 'new' audience , even if it meant alienating some of the 'old fan base'.

The real problem with Bermanian TREK, as it evolved since the late 1980's, was creative. They just didn't put out stories of a quality level that made the shows compelling enough to sustain them long-term. I'm surprised Berman & Co. lasted as long as they did. If ENTERPRISE had started out with "First Flight" as their pilot episode, (excellent story) and progressed from there with quality stories in the like vein, the show probably could've stayed on the air to this day.

On to a different sub-topic in this thread:

I do not believe the image depicts a ship being constructed "on the ground" as some have speculated. It looks to me to be in the shadows of an orbital drydock, with the Earth directly astern of the under-construction ship. The vapors look to be put in there for dramatic effect, to make it look like the Big E is emerging from the mists of time, or whatever.

That's the rub.. you can't succeed by a) pandering to the fanbase or b) ignoring them. You have to respect them, and not insult them... Saying 'this is canon' and then throwing the BSG-Enterprise as a 'minor revision' isn't respect.

I would expect that continuity in any TV franchise (especially a SciFi one, to be sure) is a difficult thing. When it comes to fandom, it isn't so much that a producer like Mr. Berman has to go out of his way to "respect" the fanbase by genuflecting to it, rather, he simply has to show some care to respect the body of already-done material as best he can by avoiding obvious contradictions and discontinuity.

Let's assume, just for a moment, that this new movie is "sold" to the audience as a canon-prequel. This would mean that if Kirk is in Starfleet academy as part of the story, then chances are the Enterprise has already been built and in-flight for a while. (It was supposedly launched 20 years before "Where No Man Has Gone Before", IIRC) So if Kirk is a cadet in the film, Enterprise is either being refit or there's a major revision in continuity there. (Actually, the Microgamma lettering on the hull is equally irritating to me. Looks so 1979. Enough with the disco era! Let's get back to block lettering!)

Now, let's assume that the movie is a re-set/re-make/re-imagining. Okay, they can take liberty with the ship's appearance because they are starting a whole new canon. That's fine, but again, what do these "new" characters stand for? Are they is space to bring barroom brawls and waterboarding to strange new worlds? And why do we need disco-era lettering on the hull? Seems a little dated, but that's just me...

Now, let's assume a third possibility. Let's assume Abrams & Co. are talking out of both sides of their mouths, and that "this will be Roddenberry's TREK" and "we're re-imagining, just a little". (I'm not assuming they would actually say something that ridiculous, but that's the way it might happen.) So we have this semi-canon TREK that doesn't respect the continuity of TOS and doesn't really make a clean break, either.

The first possibility I could understand, if it is done with respect to TOS and it is a good and engaging story.

The second possibility could also be a good thing, but only if it respects the principles that TOS brought to light (Starfleet's professionalism and devotion to exploration, the Prime Directive, Kirk's drive to be a good captain and run a good ship, etc.). If a re-make does not do this, I don't see the point. It would amount to "throwing the baby out with the bath water."

The third possibility is actually a botched cross between the first two. Either the movie is a serious canon-prequel or it's a re-make. No hybrids, please. That would bastardize TOS and the notion of a re-make.

In any event, the saucer from the image in the trailer looks too much like TMP for my tastes. Let's take down the disco glitter ball, already. Up with block lettering! It's easier to take that seriously!

And by the way... The image Ptrope linked to is stunning. If you edit the URL, you'll find images numbered from 01 to 11. If Paramount is doing a canon-prequel and they want to dress up with Big E but do it with class, that's the way to do it! I only hope the studio matches a classic script with a classy Big E. If they do, they'll succeed. If they don't, well, there's always reruns...

Ptrope said:
I guarantee that if this ship, shot properly, had been in the teaser, not one single chuckle would have been heard. In fact, I guarantee the theater would've been filled with the sound of startled wonder and not a few gasps of pleased astonishment. The "unwashed masses" wouldn't know the difference between Vektor's design and the teaser version, and the Trek fans would've shed a tear or two at how good she stands up on the grand scale with very little relative change.

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Apparently I have not kept myself up to date with Vektor's current projects. That ship is gorgeous! I would love to see this version of the gray lady on the big screen.

However, as previously posted on this board (or perhaps another), I fully expected to see Matt's base design shape to be retained and that's all as the surface details would be dramatically modified. That's basically what we have now. I didn't expect such a drastic change to the nacelles, that caught me off guard when I viewed the teaser.

I'm somewhat a purist at heart but with an open mind. I would like to see the entire vessel (not going to happen soon) but I accept what I have seen so far. I'm ok with it.